Tower and Town, October 2015

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Editorial: Climate Change

Everyone with a concern for our common future will have their eyes on Paris in December for the UN Climate Change Conference. We must get an international commitment to keep the global temperature to within a safe limit and to help many communities around the world adapt to the negative impacts of an already changing climate.

These words from the Pentagon sum up why climate change is the great threat that we must address in our personal lives, our work and our community:

Rising global temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, climbing sea levels and more extreme weather events will intensify the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict. They will likely lead to food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across the globe.

We're already seeing some of these effects - war and refugees from situations exacerbated by climate change; e.g. a record drought in Syria from 2006 to 2010 that wreaked havoc on agriculture, resulting in migration of the resulting unemployed into urban areas and likely intensifying dissatisfaction with the government.

Aside from a legally binding global carbon reduction agreement, we need global principles and practices that conserve and enhance our biodiversity - nothing short of an economic revolution that respects the finite nature of many of our crucial shared resources.

Jo Ripley